Faking rusty metal again

A friend said they enjoyed my fake rust painting but asked if I could go over it one more time. So, here goes.

I would like to show you that it works for almost anything. To prove my point, I will demonstrate on an apple.

apple

Do you believe we can make this look like rusty metal? Well, let’s begin. Spray the apple with black spray paint to give the other paint something to grab on to.

cheap black spray paint

This blog post will have lots of photos. I really want you all to know this technique.

sprayed black

Next place a few blobs of rust colored paint on a palette. I use several reds, browns, and some green and orange. Let all the colors touch.

paint palette

Dab the colors all over the prop.

dab with paint

Remember, you can stop at any time during this process when the prop looks like you want it to.

dab dab dab rusty colors

See how the colors are mixing. Do all of this wet, you don’t want the paint to dry in between steps. When metal rusts, it forms a texture on the metal. The metal is not smooth anymore. To fake this, we add sawdust. Drop it all over.

dust with sawdust

Then dab it with some more rusty colors. Some of the sawdust will fall off. Don’t brush the paint, dab it with up and down motions.

this part looks great

See that photo above? That is perfect. See the rusty texture? Most of the large flakes of sawdust have fallen off, and the smaller stuff has been dabbed with wet paint. That area in the middle really looks great.

heavy rust damage

This is the top. Right now it has heavier rust damage. The texture is deeper and more pronounced. This metal is old, and in bad shape.

working upwards

Now we are still dabbing paint lightly on to the sawdust to ensure it is all covered. This rust is not as quite as bad/extensive as the last photo. I find it is easier to start with heavy/extensive rust damage and slowly work upwards towards new metal. You can stop at any time. We could stop right here if we desired and we would have pretty old rusty metal. But I will work it more upwards for you.

dabbing colors

If you get a spot that looks too muddy, you can always go back downwards, and re dab on some colors. Then work your way back upwards again.

new paint colors

Ok, now we have the rusty damage. Now we can start adding some new metal colors on top. I start with black, then gray, then finally at the very top, a shiny metallic paint. So, lightly dab some black on. This will cover the rust and begin to look more like regular metal.

lightly dab black

See how lightly I am dabbing the black? See how it looks more like real metal peeking through the rust? Remember you can stop at anytime. Keep adding small bits of black.

more black

If I wanted to make a new shiny silver sword, I would still start with this heavy rust underneath. It adds so much depth as compared to just spray painting it silver. Look at some real steel. A lot of it is blackish.

add some gray

We are covering up the rust, basically healing the metal and making it more like new. Lightly dab some gray. You can wash out the brush now to make sure all the rusty colors are out of the bristles.

lots of gray

Most of the rust has been covered here with gray. Tiny hints of shiny silver has been added to the very highest highlights.

Up to this point so far, this process has taken me about 15 minutes. Everything is wet.

Let’s see what it looks like in some photos. I am going to show you some photos of our prop side by side with some real rusted metal. All the other metal in the following photos is real. Only our prop is fake.

on set

round rusty ball

on set with real rusty metal

other metal is real

cool huh?

15 minutes and almost free

reference always helps

a little shiny, but not bad. Once the paint dries the shine will drop

such great texture

remember, this is still an apple.

half of apple and the paint palette

Look at the paint palette? Even it looks like rusty metal.

So, there you go. This took about 20 minutes of time, and a few cents of paint. Just imagine this process on a sword, or chain, or anchor. We just painted an apple to look like rusty metal. Isn’t that just freaking cool? Less texture, and more blacks and gray paint and it would look more like regular steel. Out of all the things I know, this process is one of the coolest.

So, there you go. Go ahead, make a mess, fake some steel, have some fun.